Spatial Heterogeneity of Housing Space Consumption in Urban China: Locals vs. Inter-and Intra-Provincial Migrants

Yuting Cao, Ran Liu, Wei Qi and Jin Wen
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Yuting Cao: College of Resource Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University, No.105 West 3rd Ring Road North, Beijing 100048, China
Ran Liu: College of Resource Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University, No.105 West 3rd Ring Road North, Beijing 100048, China
Wei Qi: Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100864, China
Jin Wen: College of Resource Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University, No.105 West 3rd Ring Road North, Beijing 100048, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-26

Abstract: The relationships between migration and housing congestion have attracted attention in engaging the public against the COVID-19 pandemic and some other public health crises. In recent years in China, promoting the citizenization (“shimin hua”) of migrants and improving the quality of urbanization have become the focus of attention in the new-type urbanization today. The housing space consumption of migrants is one of the important indices to look into regarding their real living status in the receiving cities: how do the housing consumption behavior and residential quality vary between the local, inter- and intra-provincial migratory patterns? This article uses the micro household data of the 1% population sampling survey conducted in 2015 by the National Bureau of Statistics of China to look into the spatial variance of the aggregate housing space consumption behaviors of the local and non-local population at the prefectural level and above in urban China. This study finds that: (a) the longer migratory pattern indicates a thriftier housing space consumption that implies a higher probability of residential overcrowding among the inter-provincial migrants; at the same time, the locals enjoy the greater living comfort than their migrant peers; (b) the spatial variance in terms of housing space consumption can be attributed to a series of destination city contexts, such as the geological background, city administrative rank, areal location, local-nonlocal demography, municipal economic growth, and the local residential development levels. The results show that the more “targeted” housing policies are needed to solve the housing difficulties with migrant workers for a goal of human-centered urbanization development. Although we lack the more detailed data-sets to examine the correlation between public health risks (like the COVID-19 pandemic) and housing congestion problems (especially with the population on the move), this research is still illuminating in terms of how to cut down the public health risk in a highly mobile and rapidly urbanizing context like China.

Keywords: migrants; locals; housing space consumption; migratory pattern; mainland China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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